Illustrative Gleanings: The Cedar-Tree

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 7
“The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: He shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon.”—Ps. 92:12.
IN Psalm 92:1212The righteous shall flourish like the palm tree: he shall grow like a cedar in Lebanon. (Psalm 92:12) David thus compares the righteous to the cedar. Botanists say that as trees grow in height they send their roots deeper and deeper underground. If they did not do this, they would become top-heavy, and a blast of wind would blow them down. The real strength of the tree, therefore, depends upon the hold which its roots have upon the soil where it grows. But, you say, the soil is never very deep upon mountains. How, then, can trees so large as the cedars grow upon Mount Lebanon? Ah! they root into the mountain itself. Underground their roots push about, searching for all the crevices they can find in the rock: and so the tree actually clings to the rock, and is rooted in the rock, and this is how it is so strong. It makes the strength of the rock its own. In the rock in which it is rooted the cedar can stand, year after year, six thousand feet above the level of the sea, exposed to the fiercest winds and tempests, and can never be overthrown: the rock and it are really one.
This enables us to understand the verse “He shall cast forth his roots as Lebanon”: and God says also in Hosea, “His branches shall spread, and his beauty shall be as the olive tree, and his smell as Lebanon”—that is, as the cedars of Lebanon. Does not this also tell us what the Apostle meant when he said, “Be strong in the Lord and in the power of His might”? (Eph. 6:1010Finally, my brethren, be strong in the Lord, and in the power of his might. (Ephesians 6:10).)